Life is Strange - Beyond the Storm
by Mahros
Summary: Chloe Price and Max Caulfield, 20 years later


LIFE IS STRANGE: BEYOND THE STORM

PROLOGUE

The vortex burst into being without warning, sending items crashing into each other. Furniture, accessories, some caught at the end of cables, all drawn into the eye of the storm. Sparks of electricity flickered while glass and ceramics shattered before also being pulled in.

Max had never used her power to rewind time again, despite the temptation and Chloe asking her to for everything from spilling milk to lottery numbers to a car crash down the road. Their daughter, Emma, had tumbled down the stairs and it had been instinctive, no different to reaching out to stop her. Time had not rewound. Instead, an angry, flickering hurricane with strange colours, howling winds and even flashes of lightning, confined within their home.

Chloe fought against it, desperately trying to reach her daughter even as everything she tried to hold onto was hurled into the vortex. There was no sign of Max but she saw Emma drawn in and Chloe let go to follow her.

ONE

Chloe sat back in the chair as far away from reality as she could get. The butt of the recently smoked joint lay in an ashtray and she felt mellow despite the rapid beat of the music reverberating through her head. Everything else faded, even her thoughts drifted in the rhythms. With her ankle-boot covered feet up on the desk and her head on the recliner's rest, the world and its problems seemed far away.

"Mom!"

She sighed and opened one eye to see her daughter waving her hand to dispel the fug. Although she knew what Emma was going to say, Chloe turned the music off. It was just from an old phone and the speakers made it sound tinny but, for a while, that had not mattered and she had been far away.

"I'm getting high just from being in the same room," Emma complained.

"Hey, Emma, what's up?" Chloe smiled at her. She had wanted to call her Mary Jane but Max had squashed that idea. Adopted, of course, but Chloe could not have loved her more.

"You'll get cancer," Emma warned her. She was red-haired and green-eyed but as far from the stereotype of being fiery tempered as you could get. Most of the time.

"But I won't be stressed about it," Chloe responded, sitting up. The other argument was getting cancer was more likely from just stepping outside.

"Well, I will be, for both of us," Emma stated, hands on her hips, the image of an indignant teenager even though she was now twenty. She had heavy duty, industrial clothing on covered with the shine of an anti-radiation paste Chloe had created.

She and Max had agreed on adopting a boy but had seen the cherubic girl and both fallen for her. It was rare enough for them to immediately agree that there could be no doubt about choosing her. The following years were the happiest she had known since childhood but Chloe had made the mistake of beginning to believe it would be forever.

"I gave up regular cigarettes," Chloe observed in a weed-induced drawl but, in part, it was teasing Emma just because she was glad to speak with her.

The trailer they were in was their home, with the other as a laboratory with never enough space in either but sometimes it was necessary to move.

"And now smoke twice as much weed, mom!" Emma said, throwing up her arms.

"Get cleaned," Chloe told her, "and swap the paste."

Emma shook her head not in refusal but at Chloe changing the subject and making an effort at being responsible. Emma always scrubbed the dust off and put fresh paste on the clothing to the point where Chloe almost wished she forgot, just once. But, then, her daughter had adjusted to the harsh new world better than she had, not least because Chloe could remember blue skies and green trees.

"There's someone at the camp wanting to speak with a scientist," Emma informed her. "Perhaps you could point her towards one?"

"Such sass!" Chloe said with mock affront. "I was never so disrespectful."

Emma gave her an unamused look and went to change.

The temptation was to chill longer but strangers were uncommon enough that her interest was piqued. She put on her own anti-radiation clothing - thick leathers made from rad-boar skins - but with the picture of an eagle carrying an olive branch in one claw and a joint in the other scrawled on the front. It was fading but not ready for swapping yet. On went the paste, which she had come up with while stoned then barely touched weed for two months while working on the plant-based gel. At its heart was the simple idea of taking the hardiest plant and turning it into something that could be used to protect from radiation.

Again, it had been Emma who had insisted on not just giving the formula away. Trading in the stuff allowed them a bigger trailer and then a second one to have the laboratory up away from their living space. Hopefully there would be enough saved for Emma to have a place of her own; Chloe dreaded her going but could not hold her back. Her sympathy for her own mother, Joyce, grew every day.

The camp was semi-permanent with a plastic barricade erected to enclose it but everything could be pulled down and transported in the disparate vehicles the community had. There could be a number of reasons to move; sink holes, stronger rad-storms, groups of mutant creatures migrating into the area but the mostly likely cause was hostile humans. There was also the need to search for new areas not picked clean of resources but they had been here a couple of years and even planted a few crops.

Nearly twenty years spent in the dystopian future and she still hated the clothing more than anything, having to clunk around in something akin to a space-suit.

The community was thirty adults and half a dozen children - the infant mortality rate was shocking - living off whatever they could scrounge. Only a few were outside in the gloomy, cloud-obscured daylight. Chloe just hoped it wouldn't rain again as the sealant on the lab's ventilator was worn and a heavy dose of acid rain might finish it off.

She waved to Tyrone and Chuck on watch on the walls near the gate and headed to the center of the compound where a small group had gathered. The vehicles were just within the walls, like a laager, to leave a clearing in the middle for growing plants, dividing spoils or meeting when everyone got together.

Covered in rad-suits, there appeared to be two people until Chloe realized one was a mech. She was fascinated yet slightly repulsed by them, so close to being human yet not quite and never certain what made them tick.

"I hear you're looking for some smarts," Chloe declared, sauntering up. "I'm as close as this place gets."

One of the others, Miv, judging from the dirty clothing, flipped her the finger, as expected.

"Ha, invented anything recently?" Cowl, their nominal leader asked facetiously.

"I have many things in the works," Chloe shrugged and grinned at him.

"Can I have a word inside?" the stranger asked. Muffled through the suit, the woman's voice was particularly hesitant and quiet.

"Sure, come into my office," Chloe replied with a bow and indication of the laboratory trailer.

The world felt as constraining as the suits they had to wear at times. Early on, she had tried living in a town, which had been more thrilling but also more dangerous and restrictive. With Emma only a few years old, she had settled for rural places and it had the advantage of being easier to move if they had to.

The laboratory was warm for cultivating more marijuana and covered in books and jars, distillation apparatus and bits of technology that belonged to another era. Chloe shuffled books off a seat and put them on the floor while slipping out of the rad-suit. Use of a Giger counter had quickly persuaded her that even five minutes outside without a suit was inadvisable.

The woman was slower to take off her suit, first peering at all the equipment crammed into the vehicle as well as jumbles of drawings, where a face with burning hair was in the middle of a chemical equation. Sticking to paper had never been Chloe's style, let alone now the stuff was more expensive than silk so the walls had been used while the ceiling was mostly clear other than a painting of an angel with a guitar.

"What do they say about madness and genius?" Chloe asked rhetorically, noticing the woman looking at the disordered room. She rubbed her head to loosen her hair now it was free of the hood. She still dyed it blue, although few had natural hair colour in a world that should have been fascinating yet the struggle for life often made it depressing. Chloe had gone through other colours: green, red, white streaks but blue always felt best. She had created a bird-mask for her own suit and the idea of being more than just practical was catching on slowly.

"I don't know?" the woman said and removed the hood from her own clothing.

She was shorter than Chloe, perhaps a bit over five foot, with black hair that actually looked undyed, and striking blue eyes. If not quite malnourished, the woman was definitely skinny but her youth - around Emma's age, perhaps - stayed any gauntness. There was a vulnerability about her but it was hard to say whether it was superficial. It was possible she was a scout for a warband, come to learn their defences, but Chloe doubted it: the woman was more interested in the bits of machinery than any arms.

Following its mistress's lead in removing outer garments, the mech revealed a boyish face, without a strong jawline but attractive in a pretty rather than handsome way, dominated by crystal blue eyes and soft looking nano-flesh. It wasn't very muscular either so probably a personal mech rather than a war-bot.

"Chloe," she introduced herself.

"Hello. I'm Osira. This is Obix," the woman announced, only glancing at her. "What is this? Around the picture of a pyramid?"

"Synthetic oil from plants but I haven't got it right, yet," Chloe explained. "I have some weed dried out if you want a joint."

"What? Oh, no, thank you," Osira declined and, although the offer had been genuine, Chloe had the impression the woman would be easy to wind up.

"So, what brings you to my palace?" Chloe asked as she sat, putting her feet up. Osira seemed to be studying everything as though trying to remember it all, which would take a while given how much there was crammed into the trailer.

"You gamble here too? There doesn't seem enough space," Osira observed.

"No, 'palace' was… never mind," Chloe said and indicated the other seat again. Some words had lost their meaning while others had changed, sometimes to their opposite. "Still, if you want a game, I have cards and dice somewhere around here."

"No, it's not why I came here," Osira said as Chloe began rummaging through a draw and finding a glass pipe she had been looking for last week for the distillation of a plant extract. The woman finally sat while Obix stood behind her placidly studying the room.

"There's an anomaly," Osira stated, "and I can't tell what's causing it but it trails into this area. Or rather, there's a link."

"OK," Chloe said, drawing out the two letters. "Why you and why come here?"

"The 'here' is, like I said, where the trail leads. As to me… the Fault Grand Order don't like strange anomalies interfering with their lands and military so they got everyone they could to look at it."

"Swirling thing with rainbow lights, clouds, lightning?" Chloe queried.

"Yes!" Osira exclaimed and leaned forward. "You know of it? What causes it?"

"The original cause, I don't know, but it brought us here," Chloe replied. "A very, very long time ago there was a girl who could rewind time and it resulted in a storm. A cyclone that tore through Arcadia Bay but it should not have happened and Max was going to go back and prevent it but saved me instead.

"We thought that was the end of it - destroyed town aside - but, some years later, Max was trying to use the power again and something went wrong. Instead of time going back, that anomaly happened and, hey presto! We ended up here, the only place worse than Arcadia."

"Can I speak with her? She could fix this. If she brought you here then…"

"She's dead," Chloe sighed, still feeling the pang of grief, the best part of two decades later. Only Emma had kept her going.

"Oh," Osira said and Chloe leaned back to let her process the information. She felt like pacing, with the pleasant buzz of the joint fading, but there was no room and putting on the heavy protective clothing to go outside would have been frustrating. She settled for eating a tomato off a carefully cultivated plant and tossed another to Osira.

"Thank you," the woman acknowledged but, before eating, asked: "Will you go with me? Back to the anomaly?"

"And do what?" Chloe countered. "When it spat us out here, there was nothing behind us. The swirly vortex was only at one end. There wasn't a hole back to sunny California."

"It's expanding," Osira explained. "There are strange things happening. Time jumping, people dying from the stress of time accelerating their bodies, strange storms. We sent a mech in but no effect. We cordoned off the area but it expanded beyond it. Not quickly but there's no indication it will stop."

"So… you want me to go, jump into a lightning-wreathed storm in the hope it vanishes?" Chloe checked.

"No! First we need to see if there's even a link or if you have any effect on it," Osira said.

"And then throw me in," Chloe added. "Sure," she forestalled Osira's denials, "I'll come along and take a look."

TWO

The argument continued unabated all morning and left Osira as an observer. Emma insisted on coming along and Chloe that it was too dangerous.

"You don't remember what it was like," the woman with blue hair said, flapping her arms in frustration. "You could get injured or killed just by being near it."

"I could get injured or killed just walking beyond the walls," Emma responded. "Last week I killed a rad-hound and you were proud."

"Because you can handle them," Chloe retorted. "This is a whole different mess. What if you get sucked into it and spat out in the middle of an ocean or a hundred feet in the air or it doesn't even spit you out anywhere and just tears you apart like hurricanes do?"

"Yet it's OK for you to? I'm going even if I have to follow you all the way," Emma stated.

"Why?" Chloe shouted.

"To keep you safe," Emma replied.

Chloe sighed and shook her head but it was in resignation. Osira reassessed the other woman's age. At first, she had assumed Chloe was in her early thirties but, in a bad light - and there was rarely any other kind - realized she was probably forty. Emma trotted back into the trailer and handed a packet of dried food for Chloe to stuff into her pack and then proceeded to check whether her mother had the extensive list of other items for surviving in the wild.

There had been an argument about which trailer to use as the laboratory had fresh food but Emma had pointed out there was no space in it so they ended up using their home. Chloe was then on the citizens' band radio she had set up for the group so she could talk with them and spoke as she gunned the engine.

"Miv, I'd better have some weed left when I return," Chloe said. "I know you'll be at it as soon as my back is turned but just don't take all of it. Cowl, keep the crew safe and we'll be back before you know it. Don't go anywhere without us. Shara, keep practicing those drawings: I can't wait to see what you do next!

"Road trip!" she shouted and honked the RV's horn that was so loud it made Osira jump and Obix look around in alarm.

"Mistress, perhaps this isn't the best idea," Obix said quietly but then Chloe had put some awful noise on that felt like a sonic weapon.

Osira looked to Emma further back in the trailer but she was stowing their packs and preparing a space for their guests to sleep as though the hammering, screeching noise was not present. Chloe was bouncing on the seat as though she was 14 rather than 40.

"I'm starting to think the same," Osira agreed then turned to see if Chloe had heard as she had needed to half-shout it to be heard but the blue-haired woman appeared oblivious.

She considered going back to speak with Emma but there was little space and the younger woman was busy. Reluctantly, Osira stayed at the passenger seat, which at least helped mitigate travel sickness as the RV bounced along roads barely worthy of the name.

"Tell me about yourself," Chloe said, managing to talk normally and be heard in her husky voice despite the volume of the shrieking coming from the music-player.

"There's little to say," Osira shouted. "Could you not… turn the volume down a little?"

"Go with it!" Chloe grinned. "Sit back and let go." But she did reduce the sound enough that it should delay the headache Osira felt was inevitable.

"Right at the hanged tree turning to the Blood Desert," Osira said, took a deep breath and recounted how she had been conscripted to leave her community and some of the ensuing adventures. Initially, just a reason to make conversation and answer the question, Osira found Chloe an attentive listener and spoke more than she had intended. Along with liberal use of expletives, she would interject with 'that's so cool' or 'that's hella sweet' or 'no friggin' way!' but then let Osira continue.

"So their heads just blew off?" Chloe checked at one point. "Including his?" She indicated Obix.

"It was most unpleasant," Obix added, having been silent.

Chloe burst out laughing, although Osira could not see the funny side of it and Obix looked equally perplexed.

"You're both fine, now," Chloe said. "What's the harm in losing a head?"

Getting Chloe to open up about her own life proved difficult and, with the age gap and what she already knew, Osira did not push.

It made for a strange journey, Emma mostly in the back dozing before the night shift on driving, Osira in the passenger seat, Obix just behind her being protective yet as confused by the situation as anything he had come across and, dominating everything despite her thin frame, Chloe Price at the wheel, head nodding just like the line of three tiny bobbing-head dolls attached to the dashboard.

"We should plan the journey," Osira stated, aware that it should have been done earlier but Chloe's rapid acceptance had thrown out all her prepared arguments for persuading her to come along.

"We call off at Moshie's for gas, drive until midnight, get some rest - Moshie's sometimes attracts bandits or we'd stay there - and continue in the morning. We should be at Torring Delve by noon tomorrow," Chloe said.

"That's… good," Osira said, surprised.

Moshie's looked more like a junk yard than anything, with sprawling corrugated iron that served as shelters, dozens of rusting cars, a massive trailer that dwarfed the one Chloe was driving and a pair of oil tankers that were by far the cleanest things present. There were also a brace of watchtowers with an armed man - or more likely mech - in each.

"Should I stay?" Osira asked. They were east of anywhere she knew and, lacking funds, had walked the last fortnight, using a gravity-sensitive device and Obix's sensors to follow the distortion from the anomaly. It had been mostly uneventful yet there had been the need for water and guessing where wells were from GPS systems that could be a degree or more out of alignment.

As ever, it was hard to tell much about the figure that stepped out of the trailer, which appeared to have been painted dull orange to hide the rusted parts. Definitely a man from the way he walked, even aside from the size, but the purple rad-suit clashed garishly with the trailer.

"Up to you," Chloe told her. "We won't be here long. Moshie's." The last was directed to Emma, who was stretching and yawning. Emma nodded and got up. How she had been able to sleep even a little while the music was blaring out and the RV thumping on the uneven, pot-holed road was beyond Osira.

Needing to stretch her legs - not walking after two weeks of doing so felt strange - Osira put on her coverall and followed Chloe out.

Chloe and the man did some bizarre greeting ritual that Osira could not fathom. They touched fists, pulled back their arms and opened their hands like they were explosions, which had to be the equivalent of a code to prove who the other person was in the anti-rad clothing. Chloe's had a blue bird's beak attached to the head and feathers that had to have been dyed to slow radiation bleaching. With the secret greeting concluded, the pair hugged.

"Chloe, about time! I was just saying to Moira that we hadn't seen you in a while," a deep voice rumbled.

"Mosh, you walking mountain. Got a light?" Chloe responded and, even through the hoods, Osira could hear the fondness.

"Is that... ah, Emma!" Moshie called, after briefly mistaking Osira for Chloe's daughter. He trotted over to meet Emma halfway, embraced and span her round.

"Moshie, you know I'm not 12 still?" Emma complained but also clearly happy.

"Ha, you're never too old for a spin," Moshie said. "Just be glad I don't put you on my shoulders and play knights and monsters."

"This is Osira…" Chloe began and paused.

"Greystream," Osira completed.

"Plus Obix, a mech who can regrow his head," Chloe finished.

"Forgive me but that isn't quite right," Obix objected.

"Any friend of Chloe's is welcome here," Moshie said. "But come in, come in. Get these cursed suits off."

"They make him sweat like rotting dynamite," Chloe explained.

"Thanks, Chloe," Moshie said, shaking his head.

The trailer he led them into was gigantic enough that the lower level was a diner with a dozen seats and painted bright yellows and oranges. Despite not really looking like a sky, there were strange avian creatures decorating the walls and ceiling, which had to be Chloe's doing.

Moshie, with his purple suit off, was large, dark-skinned and bald beside two bushy eyebrows and a neat moustache. He wore a checkered jumper and grey slacks, sloughing off the rad-suit and beaming at them. At some point, his nose had been broken, a scar was on his scalp and another on his cheek, showing however genial he appeared Moshie had experienced his share of fights.

Moira was oriental in appearance, nearly six feet tall and with hair as dark as Osira's albeit with coloured ribbons plaiting it. Like her husband, she was into her fifties yet the wrinkles in her face showed only a life lived in amusement.

"Emma, oh, you must be breaking hearts at Cowl's camp. I swear you look more beautiful every time I see you," Moira said, hugging her and then Chloe, if with less enthusiasm as though wondering what trouble she was bringing this time.

"Go on, catch up," Moira said, "I'll whip up lunch."

Moshie winked at her by way of thanks and they all sprawled around one of the tables.

"First time I see this one, it's with a cigarette in her mouth, wanting gas," Moshie laughed. "Even I could smell the fumes but Chloe asks if I have a lighter."

"I was joking!" Chloe objected, overstressing the words and giving away that she had not been. "Anyway, you put me straight."

"I could hear him chew you out from in here," Moira added from the kitchen.

Lunch passed in a similar manner, mostly Moshie and Chloe recounting events, many of which should have had them locked up, and laughing heartily to the point of barely managing to eat.

"And you were on Grawker's bike, waving from side to side," Chloe managed around a mouthful of mox-sloth bacon and eggs.

"Hahaha, Grawker was chasing us, waving his gun in the air…" Moshie continued.

"Waving?" Chloe spluttered and Osira sat back slightly as a bit of half eaten bacon landed near her plate. "The crazy goat was shooting at us."

Moira interjected, sometimes with 'that's not what you told me' or correcting them with 'they both came in here looking beat'. Emma's exploits, even out in the wilds, were never as thrilling and she had to be drawn to say much, instead content just to sit with a mixture of amusement and exasperation as she listened to her mother's stories.

"Pardon me,"Obix interrupted, with only Osira hearing him. "Others have arrived." At the same time a light flashed. Moira checked a screen and returned to the table.

"It's the Rox gang," she said and the laughter stopped.

"How are they looking?" Moshie asked.

"Hard to say," Moira replied. "They aren't acting nuts but who knows?"

"I'll come out with you, Mosh," Chloe declared. "If they know there's more of a fight, they should just settle for trade. We fought Krav's gang together. We're not exactly friends but it might buy some peace."

"Do you want…" Emma began.

"You stay here, Emma," Chloe ordered. "I mean it. That goes for you too, Oz. Knowing a young woman is here could tip them into deciding it's a fight worth having. Just… whatever happens, keep your heads down. If it's anyone else coming through the door other than us, blow their junk off but don't go out."

Moira was already handing out weapons.

"How did you survive with her as your mother?" Osira asked.

"What?" snapped Emma. "You don't know anything. Do you know how often I was in danger without knowing how to deal with it? Never."

"I'm sorry," Osira blinked. "I… I'm sorry," she repeated.

"If it looks as though it's going south out there, I'm going out," Emma stated, lifting the machine pistol Moira had handed her.

"But…" Osira began yet Moira was nodding as well, looking like a walking arsenal with a spark blaster, two revolvers, an axe and some odd weapon that looked like a funnel with a trigger.

The trailer had no windows as they were weak spots and rarely survived a month before being scratched to opaqueness anyway from the winds and dust.

"Obix, we'll be going out too, if it comes to it," Osira sighed and picked up the automatic pistol Moira had left on the table.

THREE

Emma stared at the screen. There was her mom's rolling swagger when she was putting on an act, trying to out-brash an opponent. The Rox gang was twenty strong, mostly on motorcycles but a couple of quad bikes and a van that had skulls and flames painted on it. Spike heads, when they were down they were lethal, unpredictable savages who would kill for kicks. When they were high, nothing was beyond them and had apparently formed a cult based on their hallucinations.

All Emma had to go on was a grainy picture and no sound. Her mom grasped one of the men's forearms in a warrior grip and there was a lot of nodding. Emma stared at the screen desperate to know what was being said. Moshie seemed to be letting Chloe do all the talking and was stood slightly back but there was no indication of getting fuel. One of the riders seemed to be agitated but the one in front waved to placate him.

"Is there any way we can hear?" Emma asked simply out of frustration. Keeping a working close circuit camera was almost miraculous given the storms that could howl through. Microphones were shredded in days.

"I can repeat what they are saying," Obix announced.

"Then do it!" Emma ordered and Obix looked at Osira, who nodded.

The mech sat against the wall in a position that would rapidly become uncomfortable for a human as he pressed sensors for audio and vibration against the trailer's shell.

"Keep as quiet and still as possible," Osira whispered.

Obix was generations ahead of the decades old Emerge model Cowl's group used to have, which had constantly broken down and was barely able to communicate. In the end, it had walked into a lightning storm then never been seen again and it was still debated whether the machine knew what it was doing.

Osira's mech, which could almost pass for an eager-to-please human, splayed one of its hands against the wall. Desperate to know what was happening, Emma glanced from it to the monitor, which showed those outside still talking. Osira only motioned for her to be patient.

"I shall remove expletives," Obix eventually intoned in a quiet voice, angling the direction of its speech in a way that would take a human months to learn. It almost did not sound as though the words were coming from him.

"Ms. Chloe: Rox, you're like, a king around these parts. A prince of the road. Any good ruler doesn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs…"

"Mr. Rox: goose, what expletive goose? There's gold? Gold eggs?"

"Ms. Chloe: No, no, it's a metaphor. The goose is my man Moshie's place, the eggs are the oil. Sure, you could take what you wanted but what about next week or next month?"

"Mr. Rox: then we expletive ride somewhere else.

"Ms. Chloe: no king does that, Roxy. Look, why don't I have a word with Mosh and see if I can get you a deal that doesn't ruin the place?"

"A different person: why don't we just expletives blow the place? When did we start possibly stressed word paying for expletive"

"Ms. Chloe: Which would be easy as it's wired to go if Moshie's pulse stops but then you would be fried too, you dumb expletive chicken-brain.

"The other person: what did you call me?"

"Mr. Rox: go and ask Moshie."

"I am unable to determine the current conversations. Ms. Chloe and Mr. Moshie are speaking quietly and Mr. Rox's people are swearing at each other."

Emma's mouth felt dry and as though her stomach was in her mouth. If it went badly, her mom and Moshie were in the open and likely to die before they could do anything. With everyone being still, there was only the sound of creaking metal and wind whistling through something.

"Mr. Rox: expletive hurry up."

Emma nearly jumped at the sound, especially as Obix was using a slightly different tone for each speaker. On the monitor, her mother waved Rox back with an insolence that was equally frightening and awe-inspiring. Even on the screen, it was clear all the bikers were armed and some had their guns out. Emma watched her saunter back to Rox.

"Ms. Chloe: Ten bits a gallon is all he can do and is losing at that."

"Mr. Rox: Five."

"Ms. Chloe: Five? It costs more than that to get the stuff here."

Emma watched her mother stare at him and then shake her head in disappointment before turning and holding up her hand to Moshie. The owner shrugged, even in his suit clearly showing he had no choice.

"Ms. Chloe: you drive a hard bargain as well as a hard gang, Rox."

Then it was filling the bikes with fuel from one of the tankers but Emma could not relax until her mother walked in the door. Moira placed two moonshine drinks on the table, the first of which Chloe downed in one, followed by Moshie doing the same with the other. Emma could see her mother trembling.

"That was well done, Chloe," Osira commented. "Obix, continue to monitor."

"We'll stay a while and make sure they don't come back," Emma's mother said.

"You're best gone," Moshie said sadly. "Like you said: less temptation. But come back in a week or so: I owe you big for this."

"Owe? When did you and me do 'owe'?" Chloe grinned, even if it seemed forced. "We'd have a book several feet thick of favours done and repaid. Thieving assholes shoulda paid ten."

"They paid something and didn't kill us. I'll take that any day," Moshie said.

The departure was rapid. They refueled - Moshie insisted on them not paying - and were back on the road within fifteen minutes, which included more hugging and promises of keeping safe.

Osira was towards the back of the trailer as it bounced along the unmaintained road when Emma turned to her mother.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"Of course, sweetheart," Chloe replied. "I've been dealing with braggarts like Rox since I could talk."

"Mom."

"OK, it was tense, I admit," Chloe said. "I could kill for a smoke right now."

"Mom!"

"Fine, fine, I'll just put some tunes on."

"I'll take over in an hour or so," Emma said.

"What do you make of her?" her mom asked. It was unusual to ask for her opinion, normally assuming that Emma would just voice it if she had one.

"While having the best intentions in the world, I think she could get us killed," Emma answered.

Her mother just grunted but then turned and grinned at her.

"What?" Emma frowned. "And keep your eyes on the road."

"We should do this more often," her mom said and Emma smiled despite herself.

Osira was bedded down, Obix in standby mode and her mom had the passenger seat almost horizontal while Emma drove. Her mother had taught her driving it almost as soon as her feet could touch the pedals and was familiar with the often-mended vehicle. Chloe was asleep beside her, the music off and the night-shrouded world outside reduced to what was illuminated by the headlights. With the slightly rasping thrum of the engine, it was easy to let her mind drift.

Just because it was impossible to know what the anomaly was did not stop Emma from wondering what it meant. Her mom scribbled in an electronic notebook what the old world was like. Emma had once asked why she did not tell her stories of that time and the answer had been that it would only make this one worse.

"Did I tell you why we called you 'Emma'?" Chloe mumbled with her eyes still closed.

"Because Max-mom wouldn't let you pick 'Mary Jane'," Emma smiled.

"It was from 'emerald' for your eyes and 'Max' after your other mom," Chloe said, also smiling. Her thoughts were evidently on the other world, that distant past, too.

"Nothing from you, though?" Emma queried. She could almost imagine them going over names with Chloe picking outrageous ones.

"Chlemma?" her mom laughed and briefly opened one eye to peer at her. "Besides, I got to spend all these years with you."

Emma looked at her with some alarm, as introspection never seemed her mother's style.

Lit by the beams of the headlights, was a fallen tree across the road. Emma slammed on the brakes. From the sound, several items fell from cupboards behind them. She pushed the gear level into reverse as soon as the vehicle halted. They had come so close to the fallen tree that it was out of sight, beneath the line of the window and the headlights. Her mother was already pulling a shotgun from under the dashboard.

"I can't reverse this for long," Emma warned and, as though on que, the vehicle jarred against something, coming to an abrupt stop.

"Forward and round," her mother instructed while checking the shotgun shells but Emma was already pushing the gear stick up.

"What…" began Osira.

"Ambush," Chloe said simply as the vehicle lurched forward.

"Is it Rox?" Osira asked.

"Not his style. Least, I sure hope it's not his style," Chloe replied.

The roads were terrible but nothing compared with going off them. Emma was nearly thrown out of her seat more than once as the RV bounced over the uneven ground. With the trunk and any roots likely on the left, she took the vehicle right, actually through the barren top branches of the tree as it lay on the ground. They might even help the wheels grip the surface.

A face briefly appeared in the headlights.

"Waste-runners," her mother noted then swore as she bit her tongue when the RV hit a bump that had the front briefly in the air.

Pinging sounds came from further back as they were fired at. Waste-runners encompassed any gang that out in the wilderness but not entirely sentient. The best were just outcasts but few had suits and the radiation took its toll over the years. They scavenged and stole and attacked anything in their area. Their level of technology, intelligence and even species varied.

The headlights were barely helping. Sometimes showing nothing but dirt, then pointing up like searchlights as the RV went up an incline, then throwing shadows from bushes as the machine leveled out again. They were past the branches and Emma angled the RV back towards the road. The headlights lit up half a dozen waste-runners in rags carrying a tree trunk like a battering ram. They were straight in front and, even as some of them covered their eyes from the glare, they set the wood to impale the vehicle. She swerved the vehicle to miss them.

There was a thud as the battering ram hit the side. The vehicle continued for a moment then stopped with a screech.

"Everyone, plenty of noise," Emma's mother said, winding the cloudy window down to fire the shotgun. The twin booms left Emma's ears ringing. She took up an automatic as Chloe wound the window back up then reloaded. Something crashed against the window but did not break it. A bullet hole appeared in the side of the RV.

"If we extinguish the lights, I can use infra-red," Obix commented from behind.

Emma turned all the lights off, although left the engine running.

"We should wait for morning," Osira said.

"No," Chloe responded. "We have to beat them. We must get moving again, even if it's on foot. Out the back and stay together."

Emma's mother gave a sustained blast on the RV's horn then indicated she should turn the engine off. It was pitch black - only rarely was the sky clear enough to see stars - and they stumbled out the back almost falling over each other.

"On the ground," her mother ordered. "Fire if you see one. Obix, what ya got?"

"Upwards of a dozen hostile humanoids, mostly unmodified and all have withdrawn to about fifty meters," he reported.

"And Eagle's Spirit?" she asked.

"Mistress?"

"The vehicle."

"A tree trunk is jammed in the driver's side rear wheel arch," Obix stated.

"How intelligent are they?" Osira asked. "Can we reason with them like Rox?"

"No. Rox is a psychopathic piece of garbage but mostly human. These, well, if they once were, they're not now," Chloe stated.

"They might wait for more though," Emma explained quietly. "It's why we can't stay: there could be hundreds by morning."

"Obix, can you go and kill them?" Chloe queried.

"Only in self-defense or defense of those I am assigned to," Obix explained.

"This counts," Chloe stated. "But you have the means, right?"

Obix looked at Osira for direction, clearly distraught at the notion of attacking.

"Can we bluff them?" Emma suggested.

"Worth a try," her mother shrugged. "This is… Bravo One-Niner requesting immediate support."

"Obix, play along," Osira directed the mech.

"Mistress?"

"Act like headquarters bringing in assistance," Osira expounded.

"This is Troy Central, we have your position and are dispatching reinforcements. Hold your position. Satellite strike Charlie Golf Seven coming online in five," Obix stated, sounding completely different, even adding static.

"That… was boss," Chloe said.

"Thank you?" Obix wondered. "I overheard it while we were in Troy City."

"What are they doing?" Osira asked.

"There appears to be discussion but I am unable to decipher their language," Obix replied. "I would surmise they are gathering courage to attack.

"And the tree trunk? Can you remove it?" Emma asked. The mech looked like a slightly thinner than average human male but it was demonstrating how it was far more.

"Judging by how it is lodged, I believe so but doing so would create noise likely to provoke those antagonistic towards us to attack," he explained.

"Do it, we'll cover," Emma's mother ordered.

"We can't see them," Osira objected.

"I'm open to other plans," Chloe said. "Stuck, we're like a friggin' magnet to these lunatics though, so make it a good one."

Osira nodded to Obix who grabbed hold of the trunk and pulled. There was a squeal of metal that set Emma's teeth on edge. As the mech had predicted, there was a howl from the darkness that seemed to echo in Emma's chest and tighten her throat. More animal than human, it undulated in the night.

"They are coming straight forward," Obix stated followed by another screech as the log pulled against the metal.

Flashes in the dark were followed by the sound of bullets whipping through the air and pinging through the thin skin of the RV. Emma pointed her pistol towards one of them and squeezed the trigger. It was impossible to say if she hit anyone. Anywhere there was the hint of movement Emma fired, although the muzzle-flash prevented her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Like with driving, her mother had trained her early and she made sure not to jolt the weapon or jerk the trigger. It was so dark that hitting anything was only by chance.

Beside her, Osira was doing the same, calmly shooting into the night. Something cried out, piteously had circumstances been otherwise.

Her mother was firing just as carefully but muttering deprecating obscenities towards their enemy as well.

"It is free," Obix announced. "It should be able to move as I have bent some of the…"

"We don't need a service report," Chloe said. "Let's go! Emma, you're on the wheels. You two, on the back door with me."

Emma headed back to the front seat, keeping low as more holes pinged into their home.

"We're in! Go!" her mother shouted among the gunfire. Another hole appeared in the thin metal and tore through the top of the seat head rests.

"Don't fail us," Emma breathed and turned the key. The engine clicked, paused for one heart-stopping moment and then caught. Resisting the urge to floor it, Emma eased Eagle's Spirit into motion again, bouncing along, the lights finding the road.

FOUR

Chloe fired the shotgun, it kicking in her hands as an ill-defined shape neared the back door. Another scrambled in and Osira shot him in the head. A chain with a grappling hook landed in the doorway, its prongs thick enough to easily penetrate the thin metal of the floor and lodge. It evidently had an anchor attached as the RV immediately slowed and she could feel the back wheels dig in.

A hunched figure jumped on, covered in faded, torn rags and a ceramic white mask. A tarnished medallion around its neck glittered in the limited light from the RV. In one hand was a spiked club and the other a bill hook. It looked at Chloe and paused, perhaps thrown by her own bird mask, but that gave her time to bring the reloaded shotgun up and fire.

The figure was blasted back out as though a giant hand had punched it into the night.

At the same time, the steel prongs of the grappling hook ripped through the floor of vehicle. Metal shredded with a shriek like a thousand angry banshees but the Eagle's Spirit was free. It lurched forward, bumped onto the road and was then accelerating away.

Chloe flipped the bird towards the rear, even though the waste-runners would not see it, then took down her hood.

"Obix is damaged," Osira said. "I'll need somewhere stationary to repair him."

"Is it serious?" Chloe enquired, noting the mech had two bullet holes and a large graze.

"I am still able to function at 80% efficiency," Obix stated.

"He is losing lubricant, which includes the nanobots that repair lesser damage. If I don't patch him up, Obix will eventually go into standby mode until fixed," Osira explained.

"So, bad?" Chloe checked.

"Not good," Osira told her.

"We'll stop at Gasping Cavern," Chloe said then added: "You're alright, Oz."

Osira blinked at her in surprise.

"Thank you."

Chloe made her way to the front, stepping over the items that had fallen from cupboards and off the small table that served for eating, playing and reading at. On the floor was a flashlight.

"Where were you when we needed you?" she demanded, stowing it up before continuing to the front.

"How's it going up here in the pilot's seat?" Chloe asked.

"Good, mom. I've checked and I wasn't hit and the… Eagle's Spirit is handling OK. It's dragging a bit to the right but nothing bad," Emma told her. Chloe grinned as her daughter had not called the vehicle by its name in years.

"I'm going to roll one and then tidy up. We'll stop at Gasping Cavern," Chloe told her, not quite making the first statement a request.

"You've earned one," Emma smiled.

Chloe was not certain 'earned' was the right word but she certainly felt the need for one. Her heart was still racing and, however nonchalant she tried to sound, the fight in the darkness had been frightening. When Emma had said she had not been hit, it had felt like a vice had been taken from her chest.

"I know you don't approve but mind if I sit here?" Chloe asked, lit joint in one hand. The driver's cabin was low and she stood bent over Emma's shoulder as she stared at the road.

Emma held out her hand, which was perhaps the most shocking thing of the day. She watched her daughter take a long draw, hold it and slowly exhale without coughing, although her eyes watered. Part of her thought sharing a joint with her daughter was the coolest thing ever but it was a small part, like an echo from the past. The far greater part was concern.

 _This isn't the life for her. I have to protect her. Grief, I bet my mom thought the same shit._

By dawn, with Chloe waking to cloud-obscured sunlight fighting through the scratched and dusty windscreen, she saw they had left the Blood Desert behind. She had discovered it was not blood that turned the desert red but oxidized iron, much of it from an old waste dump and mostly buried industrial facilities that had been abandoned centuries ago. A few plants grew in the shade, including the pale, leafless trees the waste-runners had used to try to stop them.

The RV was now rumbling along the road through Silica Bead Beach, nowhere near water but glass that had been crushed up by the environment then pressed back together to form pebbles. It was waste but one of the more beautiful places, especially with the early morning light glinting through the multi-hued glass.

She sat in companionable silence for a while or at least not talking as the Eagle's Spirit rumbled deeply on the road, there was a faint knocking in the engine - probably the fan belt again - and the wind whistling through the shredded rear of the vehicle. Emma turned left off the road onto a track just after Silica Beach and towards what appeared more scrub desert, albeit without the red tinge. Another turn past a large, dust-covered bush and they arrived at a cave large enough to drive into.

It was the kind of cavern normally popular for habitation, if not by humans then by irradiated wildlife but it was out of the way, far from water and gave off a sulfurous smell. It was unpleasant but safe.

Chloe left Emma sleeping in the RV as she had only dozed in the past twenty-four hours and even with her youth it had been a tiring day.

Osira worked on the mech, technology that was far in advance of anything Chloe had ever known, with its photon cabling, microscopic nanobots and artificial intelligence center. She would have liked to watch what Osira was doing but time was pressing and she turned to the RV. Repairing it, or at least dealing with the worst of its problems, took her mind off things with her cell phone playing music that she had persuaded an itinerant band to record, clearing dust out of the engine, tightening the fan belt that was alarmingly worn, using some of their precious water to top up the radiator, then getting under the rear wheel arch to straighten the battered metal.

The rear was too much of a mess, a square foot of razor sharp shredded metal that would need completely replacing. There was something cathartic about working on the old vehicle and she even found time to spruce up the paintings on the sides. A bit to eat, including vegetables taken from the lab back at Cowls' encampment, one last stretch and then they were on the road again.

Emma joined her at the front having rearranged more logically items from where Chloe had stored those that had fallen out of cupboards during the attack.

"We're entering civilization," Emma warned her. "They have things called 'rules'. Will you be okay?"

"I think I'm having a reaction to them already," Chloe grinned.

There was more vegetation, some of it green and cultivated, large agri-domes within which crops were grown, the road was smoother and Gatling-gun armed automated watchtowers protected the zone.

Osira joined them, having gone over Obix's diagnostics again then tried to sleep for a while.

"It's a lot easier driving," she mused, which Chloe took as a reason to double honk the horn by way of an affirmative.

"I'm surprised you didn't wear through your shoes," Chloe said. "I'd like some of your luck: just strolling through three hundred miles or so of the waste."

"It wasn't entirely uneventful," Osira told her. "But the last day or so has been more taxing."

Chloe laughed.

"That's one word for it, Oz," she grinned then followed Osira's directions towards a city. Before reaching it they turned off and soon reached an area cordoned off and patrolled by armed mechs. Whatever authority Osira had got them through a series of checkpoints with a wave of an implanted hand, albeit with increasing vigilance from those on guard. The last one had a thorough examination of Eagle's Spirit by humans with less personality than their accompanying mechs.

"The man is really serious about this place," Chloe commented.

"What man?" Osira queried and Chloe shook her head then glowered at a guard who seemed to be taking too much interest in Emma.

With the last checkpoint behind them, they got out of the Eagle's Spirit, Chloe patting the side of it affectionately.

"This is valuable," she told a guard enclosed in a black suit, including mask, that looked less about radiation protection and more about intimidation. "All this other shit, nothing compared with this. No-one touches it, comprehend?"

The guard just stared at her and Chloe stared back mockingly.

"Mom, stop antagonizing them," Emma sighed.

"Lobotomized goons," Chloe muttered.

"Can you feel it?" Osira asked and Chloe stopped. She could sense a pull.

"It's like… a magnet and I'm a lump of iron," Chloe considered.

"It's gravity," Osira explained. "Just as gravity affects time and space, so the reverse is true. This seems to be a tear in space-time so gravity is distorted." She indicated a car that had been crushed down one side. "We need to stick close together. Because time is passing at different rates, if we separate, days could pass for one of us but only seconds for another so…"

"Stay together, check," Chloe confirmed and took Emma's hand.

Ahead of them were buildings and the collapsed skeleton of a dome but some parts showed years of decay and even overgrown with flora but other segments were undamaged.

"The first time it was noticed, it was a foot across and people even played with it," Osira added. "Passing balls through and seeing how long it took, even daring each other to run through. It expanded and got worse and people were injured or died. Many now have chronic cancers. We are half a mile from the epicenter."

Lightning flashed in the sky, froze for a moment and then resumed.

"You're sure we're connected to that?" Chloe asked but she knew. It was too similar to what had happened at Arcadia Bay, too closely tied to the storm that had brought them here.

"Not a hundred percent but… you are giving off similar readings," Osira explained. "Follow Obix here on, he's better at detecting and avoiding the worst pockets."

"And if I jump in, then flowers and sunshine? The world is safe again and everybody lives happily ever after?" Chloe queried as they made their way past a stationary mech, although it was difficult to know if it was broken down or caught in a temporal pocket.

"If you mean the time storm goes away then… I don't know," Osira said. "Maybe."

"Great, Oz, just great," Chloe sighed.

Buildings were collapsing but slowly or frozen completely. Others were little more than dust on the ground.

Osira was holding a small tracking tool with an antenna, myriad buttons and a pale blue display panel.

"What's it say, doc?" Chloe asked.

"I can't be certain but… you are creating a stable pocket. Both you and Emma," Osira replied.

"We're dampening the effects," Emma mused.

"So, less bad things likely to hit us," Chloe considered, peering at a sinkhole with a truck frozen in the process of sliding into it.

"I wouldn't rely on that," Osira said and Chloe could picture her frowning behind the radiation suit's hood.

"Oh…" Emma gasped and Chloe saw that ahead was a storm of lightning but the bolts would stop, flicker and then discharge. Thunder rumbled but then seemed to skip. A man ran in front of them at impossible speed but was then drawn into the storm, at what appeared to be over a hundred miles per hour.

"No time reversal?" Emma asked, her voice trembling. Chloe nodded only then noticing she had seen nothing moving backwards.

"Different speeds but nothing going back," Osira confirmed.

The pull was also getting stronger so Chloe was having to resist being dragged forward and off her feet.

"Stay here Emma," she directed.

"You know it will need both of us," Emma told her. "Whatever is causing it wants us gone from here."

"It's not sentient," Chloe said but knew she was right. Just as the storm had ripped Arcadia Bay apart was caused by her living when she should not have, this one was a result of them being in a time and place they should not be. They were all having to shout as winds howled but then were utterly silent only to start up a second later. Noises, some of them possibly distended screams, came at jarring intervals.

"Just wait here and see if I become a red smear," Chloe told her. "I might be enough."

"So I get to watch the world die without even my mom?" Emma responded. "Come on, I can't let this happen any more than you can. We go together."

They were all tugged forward by a surge in the forces of the storm, which brought them close enough to see it was below ground level. The cyclone swirled the ground as easily as though it was a whirlpool and colours striated the land around it while lightning flashed up and around. Then the entire thing would pause, completely frozen, only to continue after the interruption. Chloe actually wondered if it was somehow sentient for it definitely looked angry.

Optical cabling flew overhead, halted mid-air, then was drawn in. An unmanned aerial vehicle that was monitoring it went straight in without a stop, so fast bits were torn from it.

"Whatever happens, know that I love you, Emma," Chloe said

"You too mom," Emma replied and, hand-in-hand, they let the storm take them.

FIVE

It had taken nearly twenty years of her life, trying to understand what had happened, how to use a power that scared her but finally Max had figured out how to make it do what she wanted. When she had tried to save Emma from falling down the stairs, she had been thrown out as though it was an explosion, landing far down the street despite the fact that the walls of the house should have been in the way. Regaining consciousness Max had staggered back to her home and the two people she loved more than anything in the world only to find them gone from the devastated house.

Eventually, she had to commit to some form of life if only to fund her experiments and reading. Years passed, sometimes despairing, growing older, occasionally having inspiration only for it to lead to a dead end. Even her regular ability to rewind time no longer worked. Then she had figured out that it was not what was required. More time passed. Chloe had always been better at both the science and the practical side but she managed to set up a machine. It failed. More study, more tests. She hooked herself up to a new variation with wires connecting her to it, located in an abandoned warehouse.

The storm appeared. A circular, howling vortex. Max held it as long as she could, feeling blood trickling from her nose and then her eyes. The world darkened and the noise faded. She could feel herself slipping away yet determined to keep the gateway open a little long, refusing to believe it was other than a passage. Forcing open a door while not knowing if anyone was on the other side.

"Max!"

A distant memory, so faded it was hard to recall. She felt something and opened her eyes as though doing so required moving mountains. Chloe's concerned face was in front of her; blue eyes and blue hair. Older but still her Chloe.

"Help me get her out of this thing!" Chloe said and there was a beautiful woman with bright red hair and emerald green eyes.

"Emma?" she whispered and then they were all together in an awkward embrace around the machine; laughing and crying and hugging and too choked for words. Only very gradually did her senses register two other people present. A young man with a stilted posture intoned:

"I don't think we should be here, mistress."

END

21


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